Dr Richard Grant

Chair | New Zealand Institute of International Affairs Board

Dr Richard Grant was previously Vice-Chair of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs and is current Chair of the Institute’s Hawkes Bay branch. He was the Executive Director of the Asia New Zealand Foundation from 2008 to 2012. Dr Grant had a distinguished diplomatic career over 40 years working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the Pacific, Europe, Australia and Asia. He is a former New Zealand Ambassador in Bonn and Paris and a former High Commissioner in London and Singapore. He has also represented New Zealand at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and held other senior positions including Deputy Secretary for External Economic and Trade Policy. He was chair of the Arts Council of New Zealand from 2013 to 2017. Dr Grant was educated at Victoria University of Wellington and received his doctorate at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, France. In 1999 he was a Visiting Scholar at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and in 2004 was a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University.